Samsung Galaxy S20 – Design, Camera, Performance and Price (Review)

The Samsung S20 is a huge upgrade if you’re interested in a 5G handset, but there’s a good reason to miss a lot of Galaxy S10 numbers last year. In comparison to the Galaxy S20 Plus and Galaxy S20 Ultra, this device is a lot smaller and cheaper. However, nobody can call it a small phone or a cheap phone since its starting price is more than the price of Galaxy S10. This might be the reason for not getting enough pre-orders compared to the older handsets.

The starting features include a 6.2-inch screen with a rapid 120Hz refresh rate. You’d also get the 5G download speeds and a lot better front and back cameras. The battery life is also pretty commendable.

If you want to try out the new tech Samsung has to offer then this is the phone to choose. If you want more memory or a 108MP camera you could go for the Samsung Galaxy S20 Ultra but the S20 will be fine for most people for daily use. The triple-lens camera of the Galaxy S20 is pretty impressive with three items. Besides the new camera sensors that are larger, Samsung has also upgraded the individual pixel size from 1.4 micros to 1.8 microns on the S10. Samsung terms it the biggest overall update to its phone cameras since the 2016 Galaxy S7, where night-time images will be more visible. That is an audacious claim. We can say after Galaxy S20 Ultra camera results, we’ve seen better photos.

You’d also get the 3x optical and 30x digital zoom in this device’s camera system. The telephoto lens has been upgraded as well from 12MP to 64MP on the Galaxy S10. However, the individual pixels are smaller and it might not change to a great extent as claimed by the Company. The increase in microns and sensor size should always be considered more important. The ultra-wide lens decreases in megapixels from around 16MP to 12MP but almost every other camera looks good on paper although they’re not miraculously upgraded as much as the camera of S20 Ultra.

If you’re looking for 8K footage then the Galaxy S20 is perhaps only made for you and also when you realize that this allows you far more room to crop in and edit without losing detail, even if you’re just outputting 4K and 1080p outputs. It is definitely very encouraging for the content creators but you should also remember that the Steady Stabilization system of Samsung doesn’t work on 8K and 4K videos. You won’t be getting any smooth results with your video, that’s for sure.

All of these features are powered by the new speedy 7nm chipset along with a 12GB of RAM and 128GB of internal storage. Also, the S20 has a microSD card slot available for extra space unlike the Note 10.

The 4,000mAh battery is a good choice to have but we’re more interested in the technology of 5G and how it hogs our battery-power within a day. The increased potential has already had one negative effect: The headphone jack has been pushed out. It’s the same scenario with the S20 Plus and S20 Ultra, and Samsung has removed the feature from its S range for the first time.

The Galaxy S20 has a lot to offer with a large screen and a fast refresh rate, a new and exciting triple-lens camera, and strong specs highlighted by faster 5G speeds. But it may fall into the trap of the new Galaxy devices being neither cheap nor the best. The high price will definitely put a lot of people off-track but those with some bucks will surely look to utilize the S20 Plus and Ultra’s fast 5G speed technology. The S20 Ultra will also provide you better camera results.

Price And Release Date

The Samsung Galaxy S20 is going to be sold at more than the last year’s flagship handset of Samsung. It is because the S20 has got the 5G upgrade along with much better camera sensors and a huge display of 6.2-inches with 120Hz of refresh rate.

The Galaxy S20 5G price in the US, UK and Australia is $999/ £ 899/AU$1,499 with 128 GB of space. If you want 512 GB of storage, get your hands on the Samsung Galaxy S20 Ultra.

The handset is also offered in a 4G version in some markets such as the UK, Australia and the UAE where the £799/AU$1,349/AED 3,199 price is accessible. Customers that are living in the US can only get the phone in its 5G version.

This new price means the flagship inherits the Galaxy S10 Plus launch price in at-least one market and it is $100 more than the base-model of Samsung Galaxy S10. It is also at par with the iPhone 11 Pro launch prices that were $999. However, the iPhone only gives you a smaller 5.8-inch display and at the same price you will only get 64GB of storage.

If you’re looking to buy this Samsung Galaxy S20 then it is be available from the 6th of March in the United States, Australia, and also in the United Arab Emirates. It gets released a week later in the UK and we have got no idea why. There are some networks that are also accepting pre-orders.

Screen and Design

Compared to the S10, the Galaxy S20 has a 0.1-inch larger display and the S20 comes with a 6.2-inch display originally. It does not change the overall size of the phone significantly, and its peak resolution remains the same at WQHD+ 3040 x 1440 as the previous Samsung Galaxy S version.

If you want to push things a little further, Samsung is also giving you the opportunity to get a default resolution of Full HD+ (2220×1080) that is sharper in its performance and gives you enough to cover the most of your tasks and also does a brilliant job in saving the battery life.

Since the latest 120Hz refresh-rate is not compatible with WQHD+, there is a good reason to keep the screen locked at 1080p. Also, the massive change from 60Hz to 120Hz is important in giving a more pleasant experience when you’re playing games or surfing the internet.

We have seen the same on ASUS ROG 2 and Razer Phone 2 as well even if this device has to be in 1080p. The S20 also increased touch sensitivity to 240Hz to make games more sensitive by detecting your finger brushes at a much higher rate on the screen than before.

The news of an increased display size might put some people in trouble as we have seen the demand for smaller one-hand friendly phones and there is good and bad news coming from both sides. The good news first: the Samsung Galaxy S20 is lighter than the S10. It has also grown a little taller than the S10 instead of being wider with an aspect ratio of 20:9. The bad news is that you won’t get the Galaxy S10e sequel to offer something to those with little hands and a tiny display of 5.8-inches.

The Galaxy S20 is the shortest of Samsung’s S phones for 2020, and while we appreciate the smaller front-facing camera pinhole and HDR10+ return on the screen to provide more realistic color reproduction when watching movies, we would have liked a bit of variation in screen size, to be honest.

The Samsung Galaxy S20 gives you a familiar kind of a look with two pieces of glass sandwiching an aluminum frame. There is still a slope to the screen’s right and left sides, but it’s not as noticeable as on the S10, which can mean fewer unintended presses along the display edges.

With just a single USB-C port, this S20 becomes the first S series model of Samsung that doesn’t have a headphones jack. You’d find the Galaxy S20 in different colors such as the Cloud Blue, Cloud Pink and Cosmic Gray. Also, the hues are rather cultivated when compared to the other options in the S10 series. The S20 Plus and S20 Ultra have a black version, but that’s not available on the standard S20. All of these above-mentioned colors are available in countries such as the US, UK and Australia.

However, if you don’t like any of them, then wait for a little while as we’re quite hopeful that Samsung will come up with more colorful options in the time to come.

Camera Setup

The camera systems in Samsung’s phones have been upgraded regularly as we saw with the launch of Galaxy S6 and S7. Also, all three rear cameras in these phones provided larger sensors as well.

Considering that camera smartphones sport tiny sensors, they are perhaps the most important hardware component regulating the image quality. You should always focus on what you can get from the camera and how you can make the best out of the available camera features. Otherwise, the Samsung Galaxy S20 cameras may look downgraded, and this is far from the situation. This is what we mean; the main 12MP camera has an aperture of f/1.8. This is technically lower than the dual aperture of the S10 f/1.5 + f/2.4 that changes depending on lighting conditions and the f/1.5 draws more light for better low-light shots.

However, Samsung has increased the size of each pixel from 1.4 microns to 1.8 microns. You’ll catch more detail and light on the Galaxy S20, combined with the larger sensor. The same applies to the latest 64MP telephoto camera that looks like a big improvement over the 12MP telephoto camera last year. Because of its new telephoto camera specs, it’s a net plus overall and you’re also going to get a 3x lossless zoom and a 10x digital zoom. The ultra-wide 12MP camera of the Galaxy S20 has changed very little although; it is coming with a bigger sensor, larger pixels and 1.4 microns compared to last year’s 1 micron along with the same f/2.2 aperture.

During our full review process, we’re going to have to talk about this triple-lens rear camera system a lot more, but we already know that the Galaxy S20 won’t be as powerful as the Galaxy S20 Ultra, which has four cameras on its back, a 108MP key sensor, and 10x optical/100x digital zoom.

As part of its super-steady stabilization feature, the Galaxy S20 has also announced the arrival of 8K video recording in this prestigious device launched by the company. It also has an anti-roll correction that works up to 60 degrees. You cannot use this advanced technology of higher resolution and steady stabilization by Samsung. Super steady is only available in 1080p and it doesn’t even work in 4K videos.

The biggest benefit of 8K video footage that is limited to 24fps is that you will be able to edit and crop videos without losing on the video quality if you’re exporting it to 4K or 1080p.

However, it’s still in its early stages on cell phones. We envision that the vast majority will shoot in 4K, where you can deal with outlines every second, 20x video zoom (8K is stuck at 6x zoom), and records that are smaller and 8K film will eat about 600MBs every moment in the HEVC position.

If you’re looking to shoot your content in 8K, then you can press the camera button to take an instant 33MP still photo. You may want to use it later when you’re done filming. Thanks to new and returning apps, Samsung’s vigorous and yet easy-to-use camera app still remains the best among smartphones.

There are a lot of fun features involved as well in this device and we can start with the simple swipe anywhere on the screen to flip between the front and back cameras. You can also make a hand gesture to tell the selfie camera to start taking your pictures and a double-press on the tangible lock button will open the camera app quickly.

It also has another freaky function that takes your photo and makes your video at the same time. It is called ‘single-take-mode’ and it runs through all of the three available rear cameras to take both pictures and shoot videos as well.

In this single-take-mode, you will get photos, ultra-wide-angle pictures, portraits and even hyper-lapse footage for that matter. It almost kept all the reviewers out of the settings menu and kept too busy taking pleasure of this new freaky feature.

We can keep talking about this device and we can also come up with some more information when it is available. However, these are the features we have been looking to find in a Smartphone and also we forgot about telling you the 33MP pictures that can be easily clipped from the video footage.

Standard 5G

The Galaxy S20 is going to give all of the mainstream buyers a golden chance to get a standard 5G handset. According to a report, only 1% of the Smartphones that were shipped in 2019 were 5G compatible. Also, most of them were expensive variants of flagship 4G phones. ⠀

In some parts of the world, the Samsung Galaxy S20 will perform six times faster than the 4G phones. It is a flagship handset and it is 5G enabled by nature. It will also give you a whopping download speed of 200mbps.

This device happens to be a future-proofed connection for most of the buyers but it also largely depends on its availability in your locality or country. We can spot a significant difference between the strengths of Galaxy S20 and the S20 Plus and Ultra.

The Galaxy S20 Plus and the Ultra carry the mmWave antennas that allow them to pull down greater speeds. However, all three of these devices are compatible with low-to-mid-band sub-6 technology.

Verizon customers won’t like the sub-6 speeds although they’re doing fine with the rest of the people. As this is an mmWave-exclusive carrier, we won’t be seeing the S20 being sold at Verizon stores. The S20 will also be available in a 4G version, but only in selected countries, including the UK.

Battery And Hardware

We have noticed one thing about this 5G technology and that is it takes a lot of battery. In order to tackle this problem, the Samsung Galaxy S20 is coming out with a stronger 4000mAh battery. The S10 had a battery of 34000mAh.

The remainder of the internal specs includes a 7nm chipset, 12 GB of RAM, and 128 GB of internal storage, with a microSD card slot for up to 1 TB expansion. With the latest Snapdragon 865 chip (in the US), and Samsung’s own next-gen Exynos 990 chipset in the rest of the world, the Samsung Galaxy S20 is squarely in that ‘too much power for most people to use’ category.

The incredible 12GB RAM is something every power users will struggle to max out day by day. Any lag or bounce is not being noticed between apps in demo periods with the handset, so while early models were not benchmarked, we’re definitely expecting them to give a tough fight to the iPhone. The charging system is going to get really fast with the 25W charger and it is amazingly fast. It was first noticed in the Samsung S10.

It is also wireless charging compliant, up to 15W, and you can wirelessly charge other Qi-chargeable devices on the back of your phone, such as the Samsung Galaxy Buds and the new Samsung Galaxy Buds+.

We don’t know much about the new UI 2.0 interface but we have seen the new technology having Google Duo video calls fitted directly in the Dialer app. According to Samsung, here you will be able to make complete-HD video calls and chat with up to eight people at the same time.

Verdict

We are sure that Samsung Galaxy S20 would like to make its mark soon after its debut in the 5G market. However, as we go to the middle and end of 2020, we might see a lot more things than just faster download speed.

The triple-lens camera, with a 3x optical/30x digital zoom 64MP telephoto lens, is the real star in this device. However, the reason you will also go and buy this device is that you’re using an older version like the S10.

Perhaps, the Galaxy S20 is the phone aimed at jolting the Apple’s iPhone 11 Pro and its market. That is exactly why Samsung has kept its price close to the iPhone.

You’d also get a better 5G technology in this latest S20 and there are no other 5G devices available on the market that is cheaper than the Galaxy S20. Still, if you’re looking to save some cash, then the last year’s S10 series is a perfect choice for you.

On the other hand, if we look into the features of S20 Plus and S20 Ultra then they provide a much better 5G experience and the S20 Ultra especially has a better camera system. So eventually, we can say that the S20 is currently somewhere in the middle of the S10/S20 range and is directed towards the customers that are looking for something fresh and are also not in favor of breaking the bank. Only time will prove how this idea fares for the company.